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9/07/2014

New York Times has devastating expose on how the Brookings Institution sells its research and access to Obama administration officials

Brookings is the old line liberal think tank in Washington, DC. It isn't too surprising that the New York Times would have a lot of connections with Brookings. Those connections have done a lot of damage to Brookings. Here is just a few of the examples in the piece:

Some scholars say the donations have led to implicit agreements that the research groups would refrain from criticizing the donor governments.

“If a member of Congress is using the Brookings reports, they should be aware — they are not getting the full story,” said Saleem Ali, who served as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar and who said he had been told during his job interview that he could not take positions critical of the Qatari government in papers. “They may not be getting a false story, but they are not getting the full story.” . . .

“I am surprised, quite frankly, at how explicit the relationship is between money paid, papers published and policymakers and politicians influenced,” Amos Jones, a Washington lawyer who has specialized in the foreign agents act, said after reviewing transactions between the Norway government and Brookings, the Center for Global Development and other groups. . . .

The Brookings Institution, which also accepted grants from Norway, has sought to help the country gain access to U.S. officials, documents show. One Brookings senior fellow, Bruce Jones, offered in 2010 to reach out to State Department officials to help arrange a meeting with a senior Norway official, according to a government email. The Norway official wished to discuss his country’s role as a “middle power” and vital partner of the United States.

Brookings organized another event in April 2013, in which one of Norway’s top officials on Arctic issues was seated next to the State Department’s senior official on the topic and reiterated the country’s priorities for expanding oil exploration in the Arctic. . . .